The Mysterious Death of Frank Olson

On my latest trip up to visit family in Pennsylvania, I had to make a quick stop by the Wisp Resort near Deep Creek Lake in Maryland, and couldn’t help but be reminded of a story I had recently heard on the Conspiracy Journal Podcast about the role the lake had played in the Mysterious Death of Frank Olson.

While Olson, A U.S. Army bacteriologist and biological weapons expert, died under bizarre circumstances on November 28, 1953, in New York City, his days before his mysterious death are rooted in another recent hot topic: the CIA’s secret MKUltra mind-control program. 

About two weeks before his untimely death, Olson joined a few other scientists on a trip to Deep Creek Lake and unknowingly fell prey to Sidney Gottlieb, the head of MKUltra. While at a cabin, Olson and the other scientists were reportedly dosed with LSD by Gottlieb, and never recovered, spiraling into a state of paranoia and depression; even claiming he was planning to move on from his top-secret research in the days leading up to his death. 

While the depraved depths of MKUltra are still being brought to light today, the fact that they ran experiments on government scientists against their knowledge is another example ( of a long list) of how the CIA likely violated its charter. But that is a topic for another entry. 

Prior to the trip to Deep Creek, Olson spent years working classified programs at Fort Detrick, including research into biological warfare and advanced interrogation techniques, although his superiors began to question his work and some even believed he was a security risk because of his knowledge of war efforts in Korea. 

It appears that these suspicions led to the invitation to Deep Creek, and the eventual MKUltra experiments he was subjected to, which in one way or another led to his demise on November 28, 1953. 

While what happened that day is still subject to some debate, what is known is Olson fell from his hotel room window at the Statler Hotel (Hotel Pennsylvania) in New York City, in what was initially called a suicide by the authorities. But the whole situation did appear a bit suspect. 

Olson was in New York, sharing a room with CIA officer Robert Lashbrook, who, according to reports, was not present when what transpired occurred. Instead, the only description comes from a hotel manager, who claims that it appeared that Olson ran across a dark room in his underwear, avoided two beds, and dove through a closed window with the blinds and curtains drawn, falling to his death. 

These claims came under attack in both the 1970s and again in the 1990s. While the first declaration in 1975 came from the Rockefeller Commission in their CIA abuse investigation, it touched only on the LSD experimentation, and fell short of questioning the manner of death (although then President Gerald Ford did publicly apologize and authorize a settlement). 

The questions about his death, and the possible CIA connection, came to a head in 1994, when his body was exhumed, and the reexamination found his injuries inconsistent with a fall (or suicide). While inconsistencies were found, it wasn’t enough to change his official cause of death, which remains undetermined. 

If this story sounds familiar, it is the basis of the Netflix series Wormwood, and has been covered in numerous books and on podcasts. It has also been documented in multiple lawsuits against the government and the CIA that come with claims that the agency staged the death to look like a suicide to silence Olson, who knew too much. 

What do you think? Sound off and let us know your thoughts on this mysterious and tragic death that once again appears to lead back to the CIA and their unlawful experiments that plague our history.